Nice. If you don't respond they just don't know what to do. I think the lack of fight or flight fucks up the reptilian part of their brains or something.

Yeh I think headphones come in pretty handy in this kind of situation, because it doesn't look like you're trying to ignore them and puss out, so they don't feel emboldened, it looks like you genuinely don't have a clue they are trying to start on you.

Now I have a pair of sexy noise cancelling headphones and so I genuinely wouldn't hear them, which isn't great because you might miss the 'eh lets jump the ****'/ sound of them running across the road.

I once told the entire top deck of a bus full of drunk teenagers to shut the **** up at the top of my voice and got nervous silence for the next 15 minutes until I got off. I had that 'annoyed dad' look I guess.

Road rage always makes for great stories. My father told me one not to long ago about a guy cutting him off. He flipped the guy off in response and blared his horn (standard proceedure). The guy stopped right in the middle of the street and got out of the car. My dad gets out of his car and meets the guy halfway. Before the guy even started in with his threats my old man popped him in the face 5 times. The guy ran back to his car and peeled out. I think this is where my brother gets it from.

My realtor had a good road rage story too. He was sitting at a freeway on ramp waiting for his turn to merge on. The guy behind him got impatient and started blaring his horn. So he turns off the car and removes the keys from the ignition. Now he's just sitting there. The guy jumps out of his car in a rage and runs up to him screaming. He tells the guy "I lost my keys!" So the pissed off, and obviously not thinking clearly, road rage fellow starts looking around outside the car for the missing keys. Soon as he is half way around the car my realtor starts up the engine and drives away.